People ran for shelter from the storm, barely noticing the solitary man walking as if the rain didn’t exist. Gradually, the streets became less familiar, the scenery shifting to simpler areas of the city. It was as if he were crossing not just neighborhoods, but invisible borders between different realities. “A month,” he murmured to himself, the reality of his diagnosis finally sinking into his consciousness. “A lifetime to get to this.” Lost in thought, Marco didn’t realize he had entered a completely unfamiliar neighborhood.
The lights were fewer here, the streets narrower and less well-maintained. Turning a corner, she found herself in a poorly lit alley where the smell of garbage mingled with the rain. It was then that she saw them: three small figures huddled under a soggy piece of cardboard that barely provided any shelter. In the dim light, they initially looked like a single girl seen from different angles, like in a multiple-exposure photograph. “It can’t be,” she whispered, cautiously approaching and taking out her phone to use the flashlight.
“They’re identical. The light from the cell phone revealed three girls who seemed to have been cut from the same cloth—same face, same frightened eyes, same soaking wet hair. They were completely drenched, shivering with cold, clinging to each other as if afraid of being torn apart by some invisible force. Their flowered dresses, now dirty and drenched, were the only splash of color in that desolate scene. Marco noticed that each of them was clutching something tightly in her hand, small fragments that shimmered faintly in the flashlight.”
“Are you alright?” he asked, cautiously approaching, keeping his cell phone flashlight pointed downwards so as not to frighten them further. “Are you lost? Where are your parents?” The three girls flinched at his presence, like wild animals ready to flee. The one who seemed to be the oldest, though it was impossible to be sure given their striking resemblance, immediately positioned herself protectively in front of the other two. There was a ferocity in her gaze that contrasted sharply with her fragile appearance, a determination that Marco recognized as similar to his own when he was young.
“We’re not going back, they want to separate us,” she cried desperately, her small but firm voice cutting through the sound of the rain. “Leave us alone, we didn’t do anything wrong.” Marco took a step back, sensing that his presence was frightening them even more. He raised his hands in a gesture of peace, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. The situation was surreal. One moment he was receiving a terminal diagnosis. The next he found three identical girls abandoned in an alley during a storm.
There was something almost poetic about the coincidence, as if fate had deliberately brought them together. “I’m not going to hurt you or take you anywhere,” he assured them, crouching down to be closer to their eye level. “I just want to help. It’s freezing out here, and you could get sick right now.” As if his body wanted to contradict his comforting words, Marco felt a sharp dizziness take hold of him. The world began to spin, and the nausea the doctor had warned him about as a possible symptom of his condition struck with full force.
His vision blurred at the edges, closing in like a slow-motion camera iris. He struggled to stay conscious, but his body was reaching its limit after the emotional shock of the diagnosis and the long walk in the rain. “I need help,” Marco whispered before his legs gave way. He barely managed to lean against the alley wall before slowly sliding down to the wet ground, his cell phone falling from his hand and illuminating his pale face grotesquely from below, and he lay there with no adult to help him.
The triplets stared in fear at the now unconscious stranger before them. For a moment, they stood frozen with indecision and fear. The man had seemed genuinely concerned, unlike the social workers who had been chasing them. But he was also an adult. And adults, as far as they knew now, were not to be trusted, except for the father they had lost. “What do we do now?” asked Isabel, the middle one, trembling with both fear and cold, her analytical gaze assessing the situation.
What if he’s faking it to trap us? I want to help him, but what if I lose you all? Laya, always the leader, carefully observed the fallen man. There was something genuine about his collapse: the sudden pallor, the cold sweat glistening on his forehead despite the rain, the ragged breathing. It painfully reminded her of the symptoms her father had exhibited before being rushed to the hospital. The memory was too fresh, the wound still open. “We can’t leave him here in the rain,” Laya replied, cautiously approaching the stranger.
“He’ll die like Dad if we don’t do anything. We have to do the right thing. We have to help.” Iris and Isabel exchanged uncertain glances, still apprehensive about Laya’s decision. The rain continued to fall mercilessly, further soaking their already drenched clothes and the unconscious man at their feet. The dark alley, illuminated only by the weak light of the fallen cell phone, seemed even more threatening now that they had an unconscious adult to care for. For a brief moment, they all hesitated, torn between their fear of unknown adults and the instinct to help someone in danger, an instinct their father had instilled in them from a very young age.
What if it’s a trap? What if he wakes up and takes us to those separate shelters? Isabel whispered, always the most cautious of the three. Her gaze analytically assessed the risks. We can’t trust anyone but ourselves now. Laya hesitated for only a second before making her final decision. She knelt beside the man, ignoring the water that was further soaking her dress, and applied the basic techniques she had watched her father perform so many times at the small health post where he worked.
With precise movements for someone so young, she carefully turned the man onto his side, placing him in the recovery position Iván had taught his daughters in case someone fainted at home while I was at work. Her small fingers searched for the stranger’s pulse, pressing on the exact spot where her father had shown the heart could be felt. “He’s alive, but the pulse is weak and irregular,” Laya declared with the seriousness of a miniature professional. Isabel remembers what Dad used to say.
The recovery position was used to prevent the tongue from blocking the airway. Isabel, overcoming her initial fear, went to help her sister. Together they adjusted the man’s head slightly backward, ensuring his airway remained clear. Iris, always the most empathetic of the three, took the stranger’s soaked jacket and tried to cover his chest, hoping to offer him some warmth. However, the thin fabric was as wet as they were, providing little protection against the growing cold.
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